Dear Loyal Readers, This month, The Kureishi Chronicles will be a year old. Time certainly hasn’t flown, but this blog has kept me alive. Thank you for your devotion and continued support. As you may know, I am currently stitching, with the help of my son Carlo, last year’s blogs into a book, which will be called
I saw you speak in Brighton about 20 years ago Hanif. At the time the big hoo-ha in the press was about “asylum-seekers” - characterised as undesirables on the take, swallowing up benefits and council houses when they weren’t deserving etc etc. Plus ça change I guess - things are even worse now. But I recall perhaps someone had asked you a question about it. And you said “these are people in great need”. I thought - indeed they are - and this fact / view point just wasn’t being made in the press and public dialogue- and that was striking. It would’ve been the Blair government at the time and even they would’ve characterised the whole thing as a problem, although nothing like how it’s being characterised now. I remember even my friends at the time unable to see asylum seekers as anything other than fakers on the make. I’m seeing people being radicalised on the issue of immigration. It’s so depressing that all of the collective learning of the world in the wake of two world wars is vanishing before our eyes. It really seems like the ideas set out in the UN Conventions on rights, refugees etc - are dying along with the last of the veterans from the WW2 era. And now it seems like we might be on the threshold of WW3. Times are very, very worrying - and empathy and compassion for the many many people in great need seems to be in short supply.
You may wish to explore degrees of alienation in the context of vocabulary : immigrant / asylum seeker / bogus asylum seeker (as opposed to hard-working family!) and origins: Ukrainians are not usually termed immigrants, but refugees, whereas those coming from, say, Afghanistan, do not often benefit from this distinction
As an immigrant in the US, I lived through some very emblematic moments. One time, someone mentions in a conversation, a conspiracy about Mexicans being part of a big plan to conquer California (or something like it), and how we needed to be always wary of the immigrants because they come to vote illegally (or something like that). When I voice that, as an immigrant, I was not aware of any of these monumental schemes, they reply: "Well, not you, just other immigrants". And it is always like that - not the immigrant that you know, your colleague's spouse, your gardener, the owner of the corner store, your work buddy. The other immigrant, faceless, criminal and conspiratorial, that magically, never crosses your path.
Beautiful writing, but just reaffirming the monstrousness of the immigrant. Why don’t you write a companion piece writing about the beauty of immigrants and their contribution to societies like here in America?
Just read this again - it is brilliant but what you always do is force us to look and see - I wanted to ignore this piece of writing but could not. As of course our opinions our feelings about immigrants are going to be totally confronting- I mean we are looking at us. The only way to get the right answers and the right way to deal with it all is to say you are me and I am you. This (for me) will at least offer fairness and balance . I have been guilty of resenting someone who came here with family had a nicer place than mine and importantly took a job I wouldn’t have minded for myself. Questioning myself about all that - why are you envious what is all this? Why should I come first? helped by the personality of this person - I simply didn’t like them But - would I have done what they did? Yes. Would I be needy - I already am. Labelled ? Yes have been - and So on. To return to my point - if it is always you in that boat you fleeing your own country you asking a strange country to help you - it is you.
One way to prevent The Immigrant from becoming a 'collective hallucination forged in our own minds' is to open up our homes/lives/hearts to individuals seeking refuge - https://refugeesathome.org/get-involved/id-like-to-host/
I’ve been reading you for a year Hanif - that awfully long year for you - and have rarely been disappointed. Even when you were struggling to get beyond your own understandable resentment at this abrupt plunge into physical neediness. I look forward to your updates and love the way you have encouraged your followers to try their hand at some flash fiction.
But this piece of analysis stands out.
I have just re read it. Is this pervasive collective imagery of mass threat perhaps why we in Italy “accept” that tens of thousands of migrants perish in the Mediterranean - as though, like zombies in a video game, they will be replaced by others ad infinitum.
Oooo, yes. This is very good, the idea of otherness is ripe at this moment in history (again, let’s be clear it’s not the first time it’s happened). It’s a pity there is hatred stirred among us and not the richness that immigration brings to a country. But perhaps I’m bias as I’m an immigrant (English Irish in Spain). Note, not expat, I’m an immigrant (gasp! And white!).
This speaks so much to me as an immigrant (not a poor one though) in Sweden where the rhetoric of consensus is at its peak! “there is nothing more coercive and stupid than consensus, and it is through consensus that inequality is concealed.” Indeed!
I saw you speak in Brighton about 20 years ago Hanif. At the time the big hoo-ha in the press was about “asylum-seekers” - characterised as undesirables on the take, swallowing up benefits and council houses when they weren’t deserving etc etc. Plus ça change I guess - things are even worse now. But I recall perhaps someone had asked you a question about it. And you said “these are people in great need”. I thought - indeed they are - and this fact / view point just wasn’t being made in the press and public dialogue- and that was striking. It would’ve been the Blair government at the time and even they would’ve characterised the whole thing as a problem, although nothing like how it’s being characterised now. I remember even my friends at the time unable to see asylum seekers as anything other than fakers on the make. I’m seeing people being radicalised on the issue of immigration. It’s so depressing that all of the collective learning of the world in the wake of two world wars is vanishing before our eyes. It really seems like the ideas set out in the UN Conventions on rights, refugees etc - are dying along with the last of the veterans from the WW2 era. And now it seems like we might be on the threshold of WW3. Times are very, very worrying - and empathy and compassion for the many many people in great need seems to be in short supply.
You may wish to explore degrees of alienation in the context of vocabulary : immigrant / asylum seeker / bogus asylum seeker (as opposed to hard-working family!) and origins: Ukrainians are not usually termed immigrants, but refugees, whereas those coming from, say, Afghanistan, do not often benefit from this distinction
Wonderful essay, more relevant than ever now, especially in the U.S., where I live.
As an immigrant in the US, I lived through some very emblematic moments. One time, someone mentions in a conversation, a conspiracy about Mexicans being part of a big plan to conquer California (or something like it), and how we needed to be always wary of the immigrants because they come to vote illegally (or something like that). When I voice that, as an immigrant, I was not aware of any of these monumental schemes, they reply: "Well, not you, just other immigrants". And it is always like that - not the immigrant that you know, your colleague's spouse, your gardener, the owner of the corner store, your work buddy. The other immigrant, faceless, criminal and conspiratorial, that magically, never crosses your path.
Beautiful writing, but just reaffirming the monstrousness of the immigrant. Why don’t you write a companion piece writing about the beauty of immigrants and their contribution to societies like here in America?
Just read this again - it is brilliant but what you always do is force us to look and see - I wanted to ignore this piece of writing but could not. As of course our opinions our feelings about immigrants are going to be totally confronting- I mean we are looking at us. The only way to get the right answers and the right way to deal with it all is to say you are me and I am you. This (for me) will at least offer fairness and balance . I have been guilty of resenting someone who came here with family had a nicer place than mine and importantly took a job I wouldn’t have minded for myself. Questioning myself about all that - why are you envious what is all this? Why should I come first? helped by the personality of this person - I simply didn’t like them But - would I have done what they did? Yes. Would I be needy - I already am. Labelled ? Yes have been - and So on. To return to my point - if it is always you in that boat you fleeing your own country you asking a strange country to help you - it is you.
One way to prevent The Immigrant from becoming a 'collective hallucination forged in our own minds' is to open up our homes/lives/hearts to individuals seeking refuge - https://refugeesathome.org/get-involved/id-like-to-host/
Brilliant as always
I’ve been reading you for a year Hanif - that awfully long year for you - and have rarely been disappointed. Even when you were struggling to get beyond your own understandable resentment at this abrupt plunge into physical neediness. I look forward to your updates and love the way you have encouraged your followers to try their hand at some flash fiction.
But this piece of analysis stands out.
I have just re read it. Is this pervasive collective imagery of mass threat perhaps why we in Italy “accept” that tens of thousands of migrants perish in the Mediterranean - as though, like zombies in a video game, they will be replaced by others ad infinitum.
People have always moved and they always will and this movement isn't restricted to brown people or to people of certain religious persuasions.
Stunning piece.
Such a brilliant commentary of thought on immigrants (of which I include myself.) Here in Spain there is less brilliance but this article goes some voice to the voiceless...https://www.spainenglish.com/2019/01/18/illegal-workers-spain/?fbclid=IwAR1i-Rtg3y7LcyueXnzrn33ETk4l-rSu5VN0-TSaJxmCdeaA-FXL9GjKoGg
Oooo, yes. This is very good, the idea of otherness is ripe at this moment in history (again, let’s be clear it’s not the first time it’s happened). It’s a pity there is hatred stirred among us and not the richness that immigration brings to a country. But perhaps I’m bias as I’m an immigrant (English Irish in Spain). Note, not expat, I’m an immigrant (gasp! And white!).
Some points are debatable or need context... But thoroughly enjoyed. Thank you
This speaks so much to me as an immigrant (not a poor one though) in Sweden where the rhetoric of consensus is at its peak! “there is nothing more coercive and stupid than consensus, and it is through consensus that inequality is concealed.” Indeed!